Lower half of my computer screen "messed up" on both the openSUSE-12.3 login screen and in the LXDE

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Hello. I updated openSUSE Linux from version 12.2 to version 12.3 of it on March 15, 2013 from an image file written onto a Recordable Digital Video Disc (DVD-R) from a .iso (International Standards Organization) installation file downloaded from the Internet. At or near the end of that updating process I was informed that my Hewlett-Packard ZE1110 Pavilion notebook computer would be rebooted. At that time my computer was not connected to the Internet. The first time I saw that message in that installation process I clicked on an “OK” button. My computer appeared to be “stuck.” I forced both a shutdown and start of my computer (Later I updated my existing openSUSE-12.3 system from the DVD-R and that time after not clicking on the “OK” button waited five to six minutes with the same unfortunate result of the computer appearing to be “stuck.”). In my boot menu I saw both openSUSE-12.2 and openSUSE-12.3 items listed. On selecting openSUSE 12.3 from the boot menu I saw that the lower half of the login screen was visibly “messed up,” I think so much so that the edit control for entering my password could not be seen or else did not appear normal. But anyhow, I could type my password and enter the Lightweight X Windows System Version 11 (X11) Desktop Environment (LXDE) and see roughly the lower half of the LXDE screen visibly “messed up” as well. On the other hand I could select Fail Safe openSUSE 12.3 from the boot menu, see the password edit control on the login screen, enter my password into it, and in the ensuing LXDE screen gratefully see a good-looking looking computer screen. A minor problem may be some strange coloring over my name on the login screen.

Updating openSUSE-12.3 software from the Internet after installing openSUSE 12.3 did not improve the looks of the lower half of the computer screen after selecting ordinary openSUSE-12.3 from the boot menu. But I could remove the unwanted items from the boot menu by removing them from the file /boot/grub/menu.lst. For the time being it appears that I may be able do things in the LXDE in openSUSE 12.3 after selecting “Fail Safe” openSUSE 12.3 from the boot menu. When selecting KDE (K Desktop Environment) from the boot menu I think the lower half of the computer screen looked good, too. But what should I do to have the lower half of the computer screen looking good when selecting ordinary, not Fail-Safe, openSUSE 12.3 from the boot menu and going into the LXDE?

2

If openSUSE boots and loads now, but you have a graphic problem, you could try to use the kernel load option called nomodeset which is included in the rescue entries you can select from the grub 2 menu. I have a blog on how to enter a number 3 to switch to run level 3, but imagine instead, you enter the command:** nomodeset** instead? Here is the blog: How to Start openSUSE 12.2 with Grub 2 into Run Level 3 - Blogs - openSUSE Forums. For anyone where openSUSE does not load and just locks up, you will likely need to select the text mode (a function key selection) before the installation, before you actually press the enter key to select installation

My next suggestion if you can now see all of the screen after you restart openSUSE is to install my bash script grub2cmd which can be used to add the nomodeset kernel load command to be used every time you start openSUSE. You can find that bash script here: GNU Grub2 Command Listing Helper with --help & Input - Blogs - openSUSE Forums, Since this sounds like a video issue to me, you need to get a full screen operation before we could proceed with other help options.

Thank You,

3

Thanks, James, for kindly taking some time to write something here. Here I report on a trial-and-error approach without knowing much about the files with which I experimented using not GRUB 2, but GRUB (maybe the GRand Unified Bootloader), especially since I did not write the code which went into numerous files. My experimenting included a trial with the nomodeset option that you very kindly mentioned. The following command in my file menu.lst resulted in the whole, openSUSE-12.3 login screen being visible in an almost normal fashion, aside from some strange coloring over my name on it:

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-3.7.10-1.1-default root=/dev/sda6 showopts x11failsafe vga0x317

. The following command unfortunately resulted in half the screen being visibly “messed up:”

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-3.7.10-1.1-default root=/dev/sda6 showopts nomodeset vga0x317

. In my installation of the openSUSE-12.2 Linux operating system the kernel command had a more complicated form, and more importantly used a different Linux kernel, given in form by (The completely capitalized words separated by underscores are used in place of the data for my hard-disk drive.):

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-3.4.33-2.24-default root=/dev/disk/by-id/A_DESIGNATION_INCLUDING_ITS_TYPE_FOR_MY_HARD_DRIVE-partDIGIT resume=/dev/disk/by-id/A_DESIGNATION_INCLUDING_ITS_TYPE_FOR_MY_HARD_DRIVE-partANOTHER_DIGIT splash=silent quiet showopts vga0x317
.
Fortunately each of the files vmlinuz-3.4.33-2.24-default and initrd-3.4.33-2.24-default still remained in the /boot directory of my computer’s hard-disk drive after my updating openSUSE from version 12.2 to 12.3 of it. So I tried using those same kernel and initrd files in the file /boot/grub/menu.lst in openSUSE 12.3 that probably worked for me in openSUSE 12.2. But that failed with half of the login screen still “messed-up-looking.” So what was the problem there? Was the video driver (file) or were other video or graphics files compiled into the Linux kernel 3.4.33-2.24-default and used in openSUSE 12.2 unmatched with some corresponding video or graphics file or files in openSUSE 12.3 for my computer? (I think the video or graphics file or files compiled into the Linux kernel version 3.4.33-2.24-default were likely compatible with my computer’s hardware.) Perhaps I need to be educated here. My computer was purchased in the year 2002 and had its Random Access Memory (RAM) about quadrupled in capacity in probably the year 2010. So most of the hardware in my computer might be considered as “old” compared to that in more modern computers.

At this point my options for avoiding half of the computer screen appearing “messed up” appear to me to be:

  1. To choose Failsafe openSUSE 12.3 from the boot menu.
  2. To choose ordinary openSUSE 12.3 from the boot menu and have x11failsafe in the kernel command for that menu item in the file /boot/grub/menu.lst.
  3. To wait for or else compile a Linux kernel from source code that would be suitable for my computer hardware. I have never compiled a Linux kernel. And if the same problem would appear in future versions of the Linux kernel, then several “home-made,” yet in other respects up-to-date Linux kernels might need to be compiled in the future. Perhaps if I would make Linux developers aware of the need for compatibility of a Linux kernel with a Hewlett-Packard, ZE1110, Pavilion notebook computer, they might include such compatibility in compiling future Linux kernels.
  4. To return to using openSUSE 12.2 and use one or more versions of the Linux kernel, such as version 3.4.33-2.24-default of it, which will work with my computer.

Are there other ways to avoid the problem of the lower half of my openSUSE-12.3 login screen and the LXDE appearing “messed up?” Also what are the limitations, if any, of using the x11failsafe option in a kernel command? I ask this latter question because that might become a normal mode of operation for me.

4

First, the default boot loader for openSUSE 12.2 and 12.3 is Grub2! By using Grub Legacy, you are saying you understand how to use it and don’t need help in its configuration. For instance, in the menu.lst file, the nomodeset command would need to be added to each existing kernel load command if it was not part of the default before that kernel version was added to the menu. In Grub2, when you add the nomodeset to the default kernel load options and run the menu update, it gets added to all entries for you. Messing around with the default boot menu just adds in one more problem when you already have an issues with the default video system not working. If this was me, I would consider doing a clean install of openSUSE 12.3, but using a custom partition where you mount all existing partitions, with original locations, but only doing a format to root /. I can’t tell if your video would fail during the install, but switching to a text mode install is always an option since you already know you can get graphics later by using and adding in the nomodeset command.

Thank You,

5

Taking a tip from the writer “sempergoofy” on openSUSE 12.3 Available - All Things Unix | DSLReports Forums on the Internet I chose “Installation” from my openSUSE-12.3 Recordable Digital Video Disc (DVD-R) and then following the instruction at the bottom of that same screen pressed my computer keyboard’s f3 key and chose 1024x768 probably pixels squared for the screen resolution. Then I likely pressed my computer keyboard’s equivalent to the enter key to continue with the installation of openSUSE 12.3. I chose something equivalent to update existing installation. Only one software package was installed to my existing openSUSE-12.3 installation, which was likely associated with booting my computer. This time my computer did not get “stuck” on attempting to be rebooted by the openSUSE-12.3 installation program. But unfortunately after choosing openSUSE 12.3 from the GRUB boot menu, the lower half of the openSUSE-12.3 login screen was still “messed-up-looking.”

Following some of James’s kindly provided advice here I formatted the openSUSE-12.3-containing partition of my computer’s hard-disk drive and installed openSUSE-12.3 onto it using the “Text mode” for that installation. This time I installed GRUB 2 instead of GRUB into the master boot record of that drive.

I eventually figured out how to do some things in that process:

  1. “Text mode” was accessed like this: At the bottom screen in the openSUSE-12.3 installation procedure which contained the choices similar to "Boot from Hard Disk,“Installation,” “Check Installation Media,” et cetera, was an instruction reading “F3” and the word “Video” along with at least one other word. So I pressed my computer keyboard’s f3 key and saw the words “Text Mode” or “Text mode” near the top of an ensuing list of items. I selected “Text mode” or “Text Mode” using a key with an arrow on top of it to get “Text Mode” or “Text mode” highlighted and then pressed once on the equivalent of my computer keyboard’s return key. Pressing that latter key again resulted in another screen being displayed.

  2. Once inside the installation procedure I found that by pressing my computer keyboard’s effectively tab key I could have a different part of the screen highlighted.

  3. I could enter or remove a bracketed “x” in a highlighted line by pressing down once on my computer keyboard’s spacebar.

  4. Some lines were too long to be displayed on my computer screen, but included a left- or right-pointing arrow at, respectively, the left or right end of such a line. Pressing on my computer keyboard’s cursor key with the left- or right-pointing arrow on top of it and holding it down or else by pressing that key multiple times could eventually result in some characters being displayed on my computer screen which otherwise could not be seen in the long lines.

During the installation I left my computer for awhile. After returning to it I discovered that my computer screen was nearly black and with low-level lighting within it. Moving a finger over my computer’s touch pad did not result in a display of the files being installed. But after waiting awhile, my computer was automatically and successfully “rebooted.” Then I could again see interesting characters on my computer screen.

On the GRUB-2 boot menu I selected “openSUSE 12.3” and unfortunately again found that the lower half of the openSUSE-12.3 login screen was “messed-up-looking.” So again following James’s kindly provided advice here and in the manner he wrote on https://forums.opensuse.org/blogs/jdmcdaniel3/how-start-opensuse-12-2-grub-2-into-run-level-3-112 for “3” I instead added “nomodeset” to a line in GRUB 2 beginning with the word “linux.” Unfortunately that did not make the lower half of the login screen look any better. But adding instead “x11failsafe” to the end of that same “linux”-containing line did result in a good-looking login screen. So this was the same pair of phenomena I saw using GRUB Legacy and the options nomodeset and x11failsafe entered separately. One improvement, however, was that the strange colors on top of my name on the login screen were removed. And after clicking on an icon in my Konqueror Web browser the strange yellow coloring over the name of the file represented by that icon did not occur.

On the GRUB-2 boot menu I could select “Advanced Startup Options” and then a line containing the word “recovery,” enter my password on the login screen after clicking on “More…” there, and get into the LXDE of openSUSE 12.3 with it looking normal. But later things were not nearly that good with that method. On the login screen while entering my password I could see not the usual black discs, but the actual characters in my password. After pressing the equivalent of my computer keyboard’s enter key the password edit control reappeared, this time empty of any characters I entered. So I reentered my password and this time saw black discs appearing in that edit control while I typed my password. However, after pressing the equivalent of my computer keyboard’s enter key, I was not taken to the LXDE. So I could not enter the LXDE and do anything useful there in openSUSE 12.3.

On instead choosing “openSUSE 12.3” on the GRUB-2 boot menu on the half-“messed-up” login screen I could click once about where the invisible word word “More” might be, type my password, and then enter the LXDE. However, the lower half of the computer screen was “messed up” so that unfortunately I could not do anything I would consider useful in the LXDE that way either.

The writer of https://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/install-boot-login/463146-x11failsafe-nvidia-drivers.html found a phenomenon similar to one of mine that by the use of the Linux kernel parameter x11failsafe that he could obtain good results I suppose regarding screen displays. That writer found that for his Nvidia I guess video card that the use of the parameter x11failsafe caused a different video driver to be used than the one used without that kernel parameter. But in my case looking in the files /var/log/Xorg.O.log.old or maybe Xorg.0.log.old and /var/log/Xorg.O.log or maybe Xorg.0.log I could see the logs for two starts of openSUSE 12.3, one using the nomodeset parameter and one using the x11failsafe kernel parameter. But in each of those files I found “X.org Video Driver: version 13.1”. My computer’s display was listed in openSUSE 12.3 as an S3 Twister_K or Twister_K display. So far I haven’t found an S3 Graphics driver for a Linux operating system for that display or video card.

In summary, I now have two problems I would like to have solved: 1) how to have a good-looking openSUSE-12.3 login screen without using the x11failsafe kernel parameter for my computer and 2) how to successfully enter my password and in a way that only black discs instead of its characters are displayed within the edit control for entering that password. Please provide help here.

6

Did you try using** nomodeset** instead of the x11failsafe you are using now? This is the action I would try.

To enter parameters, have a look here: How to Start openSUSE 12.2 with Grub 2 into Run Level 3 - Blogs - openSUSE Forums

and to make changes to the Grub2 menu, look here: GNU Grub2 Command Listing Helper with --help & Input - Blogs - openSUSE Forums

Thank You,

7

Correction: After setting the screen resolution to 1024x768, probably pixels squared, and choosing the openSUSE-12.3 installation option equivalent to update an existing system or installation, 11 software packages were updated, not one software package. Sorry, I made that error.

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I did separately try the kernel parameters nomodeset and x11failsafe. In both GRUB and GRUB 2 the results were at first the same with the lower half of the openSUSE-12.3 login screen “messed up” with nomodeset and a good-looking login screen with instead x11failsafe. Then in later attempts to log into openSUSE 12.3 with the x11failsafe option I could not login at all that way. For some additional details of that experiment see my above writing in this thread.

On March 15, 2013 I at least started to make a backup of my hard-disk drive when openSUSE 12.2 was installed on it and before I tried to update openSUSE to openSUSE 12.3. After getting out of bed on the morning of March 15, 2013 I discovered that there had been an apparently short electrical power failure at home. If that power failure occurred after that backup was entirely written, then by restoring the data on my hard-disk drive from that backup of it I may be able to return to a state using openSUSE 12.2 and GRUB Legacy in which neither of my present problems existed. Inspecting that backup I noticed that files were written for multiple partitions of my hard-disk drive. So this option is hopeful. If such restoration would work, that would make a good starting point for me. By inspecting /var/log/Xorg.O.log or Xorg.0.log after a successful boot into openSUSE-12.2 Linux, this might also be a way for me to learn what video driver in openSUSE 12.2 worked well with my computer hardware.

8

So I do not know what kind of backup that you have made, but my normal suggestion for a backup is a seperate hard drive where you do a by file backup, perhaps up to your entire /home folder. Then you do a clean install, perhaps restoring all of Documents and Downloads straight on. Installing the latest version of openSUSE 12.3 may create a problem with older video hardware. For instance, on a PC loaded with an nVIDIA 7600 video card, I found I have to install using the text mode as a GUI install would not work. But, after the install, openSUSE started up just fine and making a text mode install seems to increase the odds of an older video card working properly after the install is complete. Once you get the latest version of openSUSE 12.3 running, it is more likely that your older video setup will work just fine. Then I do a by file restore of only the data I want to keep, thougjh I often preserve more than one system backup just in case.

Thank You,

9

Thanks, James, for kindly taking some of your time to post something here.

Correction: My backup of the data written on my computer’s hard-disk drive was for its state on the evening of March 14, 2013. That backup procedure took some hours and was completed on March 15, 2013. So sorry, I should have referred to the backup date as March 14, 2013 instead of March 15, 2013 because that backup was for my computer’s state on the evening of March 14, 2013 in the eastern United States.

To provide some information in response to James McDaniel’s most recent posting here the backup of all of the data on my hard-disk drive was written onto an external hard-disk drive plugged into two, Universal Serial Bus (BUS) ports of my computer. The production of the hard-disk-drive backup amounts to

  1. copying blocks of data on my computer’s internal hard-disk drive into blocks of data on the external hard-disk drive with
  2. some compression of the written data. Restoring the backed-up data amounts to these processes in reverse, namely decompressing the backed-up data on the external hard-disk drive and then copying a block of it originally compressed on the external hard-disk drive onto my computer’s internal hard-disk drive.

As I wrote above in this thread, formatting a partition of my computer’s hard-disk drive and then freshly installing openSUSE 12.3 onto it using the “Text mode” still resulted in especially the lower half of my openSUSE-12.3 login screen looking “messed up;” and adding the nomodeset option to the Linux kernel command in GRUB 2 beginning with the word “linux” was unfortunately unsuccessful in remedying the “messed-up” lower half of the openSUSE-12.3 login screen. Some other details of my previous exprerimenting and difficulties are written above in this thread.

    From the backup I mentioned gratefully I was able to restore the data on my computer's hard-disk drive to the data on it on March 14, 2013.  So gratefully the I-suppose relatively brief electrical power failure may have occurred after that backup was written.  Now I have an openSUSE-12.2 instead of openSUSE-12.3 Linux operating system installed on my computer's hard-disk drive.  My boot menu is that of GRUB (GRand Unified Bootloader) Legacy, but includes GRUB 2 as one its choices.

Gratefully using openSUSE 12.2 the problems of the lower half of the openSUSE login screen being “messed up” and me not being able to log into openSUSE after the first or second, successful time and have the login screen look good have been eliminated by the restoration of the data on computer’s my hard-disk drive to those prior to working with openSUSE 12.3. With the login screen looking good in openSUSE 12.2 I was interested to document the working conditions regarding the video display on my computer. This knowledge might be useful in possibly attempting to use openSUSE 12.3 and possibly future versions of openSUSE with my present computer.

So in openSUSE 12.2 in the file /var/log/Xorg.0.log or else Xorg.O.log I found data which may be useful in this regard:
ABI class: X.Org Video Driver: 12.0 (In openSUSE 12.3 in the file /var/log/Xorg.0.log or Xorg.O.log I found X.org or X.Org Video Driver: 13.1.)
X.Org or X.org X Server 1.12.3; Release Date: 2012-07-09
(II) Savage: driver (version 2.3.4) for S3 Savage chipsets: long list including “Twister KN133” which matches my computer’s KN133 north-bridge circuitry chipset and overlaps with my computer’s video chip of “Integrated AGP” (Accelerated Graphics Port),
“3D” (3-Dimensional) “embedded in VIA” (Very Innovative Architecture {Technologies}) “Twister” *

The writing in the file /var/log/Xorg.0.log or Xorg.O.log is very lengthy. And I must confess that I may be a novice in trying to interpret it. But I suppose that my working openSUSE-12.2 installation may be using a Savage driver version 2.3.4 for S3 Graphics, Incorporated chipsets.

The problem of the “messed-up” lower half of the openSUSE-12.3 login screen in my case occurred after both updating openSUSE 12.2 to 12.3 of it in a “Text-mode” installation and after formatting the openSUSE-Linux-containing partition and freshly installing openSUSE-12.3 onto it (As I wrote above in this thread this problem could be avoided after updating openSUSE 12.2 to 12.3 of it by using the x11failsafe option in a GRUB Legacy kernel command.). From here in the short run I may need some advice on how to force the Linux kernel 3.7.10-1.1-default used on March 16, 2013 in a then, up-to-date, openSUSE-12.3, Linux operating system to use the Savage driver version 2.3.4 for S3 Graphics or VIA Technologies’ Twister video chips or “X.Org Video Driver, version 12.0.”

Perhaps this might be solved by seeking an old version of the X Windows System, version 11 (X11) or “X Server 1.12.3” in openSUSE-12.3 repositories which contains “X.Org Video Driver, version 12.0;” I guess that “X Server 1.12.3” might be at least one version of X Server that would contain that video driver. Is it possible to use a version of X Server or X11 with a number of Linux kernels? Or does one have to obtain a version of “X Server” or X11 designed for a specific Linux kernel? I would appreciate a brief explanation here, if the answer is that a kernel-specific version of “X Server” or X11 is required in order to work in that same version of the Linux kernel.

In the long run there could be an easier solution if Linux kernel developers and perhaps also X11 developers are made aware of the needs for a combination of an X Server, Version 11 compatible with a Linux kernel and each of them is in turn made compatible with Hewlett-Packard’s KN133 north-bridge circuitry chip and S3 or VIA Technologies’ Twister video chips. Or alternatively a general procedure for me to work with both future Linux kernels and an appropriate video driver for my computer’s video hardware might be useful.

I can imagine at least two means for me to obtain some relevant advice:

  1. to receive the advice from one or more posters here or
  2. to join an X11 electronic-mailing and ask for advice from members of that electronic-mailing list.

In addition, what would be the ways for me to make Linux-kernel and X11 developers aware of my computer hardware’s video-software needs?*

10

Ok wading through your dense text. I think you say you have a savage video card??

Savage is always a problem. I suggest you boot with the nomodeset kernel option and see if you can get a usable screen. Note you will not be able to get max resolution since the driver will revert to a more generic driver. But one step at a time. And please don’t give the life store try to only give essential info.

11

If I understood this well, 2009newbie has a savageS3-graphic.
As I got the experience on ibmt23 with savageS3-16MB-graphics, this card does not work well with opensuse since 12.2, or better saying, last time it showed a correct desktop was with 12.1rc1, so far my experience, upgrading from OS12.1 resulted well, up to actual OS12.3
Not only in opensuse, nearly all newer linux-distros did not work with this card, “messed-up” screen, broken screen in lower part of screen, crazy mouse-behaviour in upper part of screen, and this also in live-cd-modus, screen not workable.
So it is worth to start in vesa-modus, you will get a reasonable screen, in opensuse you get this with nomodeset or nokms, I think.
At least it worked out like this with manjaro-linux, gonna run a test tomorrow on ibmT23 to check this

Martin

12

Thanks, Gogalthorp, for kindly taking some time to write something here in an attempt to help me. Sorry, Gogalthorp, for the lack of paragraph separations and line breaks in the ninth posting in this thread; I had them in my original document, but lost them in my posting. Then I tried to add them by editing my posting. And unfortunately that failed. I have asked for help to have those paragraph separations added in the ninth posting in this thread. If they can be added, I hope that would make my writing in the ninth posting in this thread less difficult to follow. I am writing this posting directly into a Web page, hoping this will avoid the paragraph-separation problem.

I did try the nomodeset option in the Linux kernel command in GRUB Legacy and GRUB 2. But unfortunately that failed to eliminate the problem of the lower half of the openSUSE-12.3 login screen being “messed up.” So far in one openSUSE-12.3 installation I have found that using the x11failsafe kernel option instead of the nomodeset option could eliminate that problem.

In the last several sentences and at least one question in my posting in this thread before this one you can see things about which I have more recently been wondering. If you have helpful comments relating to those ideas of mine, I welcome them.

13

There is a thread with a discussion of Savage graphics card problems which first appeared in openSuSE 12.3. A workaround is described at https://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/pre-release-beta/483333-score-so-far-t-23-x-31-lenovo-g570-12-3-rc1-4.html#post2538000

Regards,
Howard

14

Thanks, Howard; I noticed a message from probably you when testing a posting procedure within an openSUSE forum. Thank you, Howard! You have solved the main part of my difficulty with your posting at https://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/pre-release-beta/483333-score-so-far-t-23-x-31-lenovo-g570-12-3-rc1-4.html#post2538000 on the Internet!

My Hewlett-Packard ZE1110, Pavilion notebook computer uses a Very Innovative Architecture (VIA) Technologies (later S3 Graphics, Incorporated and High Technology Computer Corporation of Taiwan) Twister or Twister-K display. I started with an openSUSE-12.2 installation and a GRand Unified Bootloader (GRUB) Legacy boot menu. The successful procedure for me to transition from that system to an openSUSE-12.3, Linux operating system was as follows:

  1. I downloaded the International Standards Organization (.iso) file for the installation of an openSUSE-12.3, Linux operating system onto a 32-bit personal computer from within openSUSE on the Internet, at the beginning by clicking on the “Downloads” menu and then selecting “Latest Stable Release” or something similar to that.

  2. Using the program Nero Burning ROM (Read-Only Memory) I chose “Copy Image to Disc” to burn the installation program in the appropriate fashion onto a Recordable Digital Video Disc (DVD-R) using the DVD writer that I bought separately for my computer in I think the year 2010. Please note that this writing or “burning” procedure is different from simply writing a file without alteration of it onto a DVD-R.

  3. I “booted” my computer using the data written on that DVD-R.

  4. With “Installation” selected I clicked on my computer’s f3 key and selected 1024x768 probably pixels squared for the installation.

  5. I chose “Update an existing installation” or something similar to that.

  6. After much of that installation my computer was automatically “rebooted.” After that rebooting with the openSUSE-12.3 DVD-R still in my DVD drive I chose “Boot from the Hard Disk” or something close to that on the relevant openSUSE-12.3 screen.

  7. Eventually I reached the openSUSE-12.3 login screen with the lower half of it looking “messed up.” And on the upper half of it there were some strange groups of white dots.

  8. I forced both a shutdown of my computer and a start of it.

  9. At the GRUB Legacy boot menu I could see both openSUSE-12.2 and openSUSE-12.3 items listed. I chose Fail Safe openSUSE 12.3—3.7.10-1.1-default, with the latter part of that item being the version of the Linux kernel. In my case that choice put me into the Lightweight X Windows System, version 11 (X11) Desktop Environment (LXDE). But the instructions below, except for “LXDE Control Center” within item 11 below, I guess might also apply to the KDE (K Desktop Environment) Plasma Workspace.

  10. As a root user I edited the file /boot/grub/menu.lst, eliminating the commands associated with the unwanted openSUSE-12.2, boot-menu items. Among the remaining boot-menu items I counted starting with zero instead of one the items through the item for the chosen default operating system which would be automatically chosen for booting if I did not choose an operating system for booting myself within several seconds. In my case that was the 0, 1, 2, 3rd item in the list (equivalent to the fourth item in the list starting the counting with one). So in the file /boot/grub/menu.lst I had the command “default 3” before all of the boot-menu items.

  11. Following Howard’s kindly provided instructions at https://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/pre-release-beta/483333-score-so-far-t-23-x-31-lenovo-g570-12-3-rc1-4.html#post2538000, via the lizard or application kicker, “System,” and “LXDE Control Center,” I entered my root-user password and then then clicked on YaST2 (Yet another Software Tool 2). Then I clicked on “Software Management.” In its search edit control or white rectangle I typed “savage” and either pressed my computer keyboard’s equivalent to the return key or else clicked on the “Search” button in that first-appearing window of YaST2’s “Software Management.” The package xf86-video-savage was found with its version number reported as 2.3.6-2.2.1 and already installed on my computer; so I suppose it came from the openSUSE-12.3 DVD-R data. With that package selected by clicking on the “Technical Data” tab I could see that the architecture appropriate for that software package was i586. So these data matched the data given in the file xf86-video-savage-2.3.6-2.2.1.i586.rpm mentioned by Howard in his kindly provided posting.

  12. Again from Howard’s kindly provided instructions, in my case as a root user in the Linux text editor Kate, I edited the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-device.conf to include the lines:

Section “Device”
(a few spaces here) Identifier “Default Device”

(a few spaces here) Driver “savage”
(a few spaces here) Option “DisableTile”
EndSection

. For some of the above lines making those edits may have been as simple as removing a leading # on such a line. Including the above lines in it, I saved that file 50-device.conf.

  1. I “rebooted” my computer, this time choosing ordinary, not Fail-Safe, openSUSE 12.3 from the GRUB Legacy boot menu. By this time the unwanted openSUSE-12.2 items probably did not appear in that boot menu, having been edited out of it in the above step 10. Gratefully this time the openSUSE-12.3 login screen looked good. And fortunately some blue coloring did not appear as it did previously over my name there.

I thank Howard for both kindly notifying me of his posting and for producing it. And I thank those of you, including James McDaniel, who kindly used some of your time to write something here! Also I thank the moderator using the user name “oldcpu” who kindly inserted paragraph separations in the ninth posting in this thread (Eventually I found that the contents of a file saved as a text document could be copied and pasted onto an openSUSE-forum, online form with the paragraph separations in those contents preserved. Sorry, I did not do that in the beginning for the ninth posting in this thread.). I appreciate people willing to try to help other people! Thank all of you!

15

You are welcome for help provided and happy to hear you are making progress. I must freely admit it is hard to get around multiple lengthy message posts here to decipher what the basic facts are to your problem. Consider making more brief and to the point posts in the future and good luck in using openSUSE. We are here to help you in any way we can.

Thank You for using openSUSE,